May 9, 2024

The Honorable Daniel I. “Danny” Werfel”

Commissioner
Internal Revenue Service
1111 Constitution Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C., 20224

Dear Commissioner Werfel,

We write to demand you open an investigation to determine if the supporters of the National
Students for Justice in Palestine (NSJP), including the AJP Educational Foundation (AJP), the
Tides Foundation, the Westchester Peace Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC Foundation),
and other benefactors of NSJP have engaged in conduct warranting revocation of their tax-
exempt statuses on the basis of their financial support of NSJP.
On May 1, 2024, victims of the October 7, 2023 attack filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Virginia against AJP and NSJP. Among other claims made in the
filing, the plaintiffs allege AJP “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States,”
and “founded … NSJP to control hundreds of Students for Justice in Palestine (‘SJP’) chapters
across the country.”1 What’s more, the plaintiffs allege “On October 8, the day after Hamas’s
terrorist attack, [AJP] and NSJP were prepared and responded to Hamas’s ‘call for mass
mobilization’ by disseminating a manifesto and plan of attack … which includes materials that
appear to have been created before the attack.”2 This basis provides ample grounds for you to
initiate your own investigation of these entities’ tax-exempt status.
In fact, you would not be alone in investigating AJP. On October 31, 2023, Attorney General
Jason S. Miyares of Virginia initiated an investigation that AJP “may have used funds raised for
impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist
organizations.”3
It is long-established precedent that when 501(c)(3) organizations have “planned activities that
violate laws” or engage in activities designed “to induce the commission of a crime or if the
accomplishment of the purpose is otherwise against public policy,” the Internal Revenue Service

1
Complaint of Maya Parzier, Adin Gress, et. al. in Maya Parzier, Adin Gress, et. al. v. AJP Educational Foundation
and National Students for Justice in Palestine, No. 24-cv-00724 (E.D.V.A. May 1, 2024).
2
Id.
3
Press release, Office of the Attorney General of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Attorney General’s Office Opens
Investigation Into American Muslims for Palestine Nonprofit (Oct. 31, 2023).
(IRS) has grounds to revoke their tax-exempt status.4 In fact, the IRS has set the precedent that
“organizations have been held not to qualify for IRC 501(c)(3) on grounds that the activities of
the organizations in question contravened public policy even though the organizations did not
violate any federal statutes or state or local laws.”5
We should not need to remind you of the heinous support NSJP chapters across the country have
voiced for Hamas, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Within 12 days after
the October 7th attack, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) documented that “the national
leadership of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and many of the organization’s campus
chapters explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas [emphasis added] and their armed attacks on
Israeli civilians and voiced an increasingly radical call for confronting and ‘dismantling’ Zionism
on U.S. college campuses.”6
That support has exploded at NSJP chapter-led demonstrations in recent weeks. It has gotten to
the point that demonstrators, including at Columbia University, were reportedly chanting “We
are Hamas” and “Al-Qassam [in reference to the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s
military wing] you make us proud, kill another soldier now!”7
In light of this abhorrent support for an FTO, we call on you to initiate an investigation to
determine whether financial supporters of NSJP, including but not limited to AJP, the WESPAC
Foundation, and the Tides Foundation, have engaged in conduct warranting their tax-exempt
status to be stripped.
Thank you for your time and attention to this letter. We look forward to hearing from you as
soon as possible but no later than May 23, 2024.
Sincerely,

Joni K. Ernst Bill Cassidy, M.D.

United States Senator United States Senator

4
Internal Revenue Service, 1985 Exempt Organizations Continuing Professional Education Text: J. Activities that
Are Illegal or Contrary to Public Policy, 1985 EO CPE (1985), https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-tege/eotopicj85.pdf.
5
Id.
6
Center on Extremism, “Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)”, Anti-Defamation League (Oct. 19, 2023),
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/students-justice-palestine-sjp.
7
Center on Extremism, “Campus Antisemitism Surges Amid Encampments and Related Protests at Columbia and
Other U.S. Colleges”, Anti-Defamation League (May 1, 2024), https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/campus-
antisemitism-surges-amid-encampments-and-related-protests-columbia-and-other.
Marco Rubio Thom Tillis
U.S. Senator United States Senator

Markwayne Mullin Roger Marshall, M.D.

United States Senator United States Senator

Kevin Cramer Mike Crapo

United States Senator United States Senator

Dan Sullivan James E. Risch

United States Senator United States Senator

John Thune Lindsey O. Graham

United States Senator United States Senator
Ted Cruz Marsha Blackburn
United States Senator United States Senator

Mitt Romney Katie Boyd Britt

United States Senator United States Senator